Grilled Lamb with Veggies

I have to start out by saying that my dad is a great cook. Both of my parents are. My mom does the comfort food, my dad does the “cool” food. The grilling, the seafood, the curries, the sushi. I think I got my love of good, creative food from my dad. One of my favorite ways to spend time with my dad is to cook with him. So when we got the invitation to come over and grill some lamb… how could I say no?

This is the recipe that he had written out for me:

l like a hot grill – 450+… 

For those lamb chops 4-5 minutes per side gives a nice finish and keeps them medium rare. I marinate them overnight.

Basic marinade for 6 chops:

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

4-5 teaspoons good balsamic vinegar (I like a little more vinegar)

1/4 teaspoon each

- Oregano

- Thyme

- Basil

- Rosemary

- Fresh cracked pepper

- Salt

Put the chops in a sealable container

Whisk the marinade up for a few seconds and pour over the chops. Make sure they get coated on all sides.

Cover the chops and refrigerate overnight

Honestly, I’d never cooked lamb before, and had always had that drawn-to-it-but-slightly-intimidated-by-it feeling… so I was eager to get some first hand experience with how to cook it. It looked lovely.

There were quite a few people to feed (four adults and two teenagers), so he had also gotten some steaks too. The typical method for steak for him is a dry rub of salt, pepper, and paprika. Simple. Yummy.

There were also veggies cut up and waiting to be grilled (staple veggies of red peppers, mushrooms, and zucchini) resting in a similar marinade as the lamb – olive oil, balsamic vinegar, chile pepper, oregano, thyme, basil, salt & pepper.

Everything got put on the grill, and got good and seared on the outside, the middle just a bit pink and tender. The veggies were cooked in a tin foil pouch for a little bit, then transferred to the bare grill to blacken the outsides a bit. I always love the black ones!

Once the food was ready, we prepared some grilled peaches with a butter-sugar sauce (recipe to be posted next!). The lamb, steak, and grilled veggies were matched up with a delicious North African Chickpea and Quinoa Salad. Perfect summer food!

Tags: Grilling, Lamb, Mediterranean, North African, Quinoa, Steak, Veggies

This entry was posted on September 24th, 2008 and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.